Listen to What the Spirit is Saying

Sermon notes for Sunday October 15, 2012 at the United Church of Acworth, NH.

We depend, as did our ancestors, upon the continual guidance of the Holy Spirit to lead us into all truth.

UCA Faith and Covenant

“I will ask the Father, and he will give you another helper, who will stay with you forever. He is the Spirit, who reveals the truth about God.” John 14:16-17a

“When...the Spirit comes, who reveals the truth about God, he will lead you into all the truth. He will not speak on his own authority, but he will speak of what he hears and will tell you of things to come.”

John 17:13

We read in the letter to the Hebrews that “the word of God is alive and active, sharper than any double-edged sword. It cuts all the way through, to where soul and spirit meet, to where joints and marrow come together. It judges the desires and thoughts of a person's heart. There is nothing that can be hid from God; everything in all creation is exposed and lies open before God's eyes. And it is to God that we must all give an account of ourselves.”

We read from our faith and covenant, that “we depend, as did our ancestors, upon the continual guidance of the Holy Spirit to lead us into all truth.”

For our ancestors this was an extremely important statement. Just as it said that we depend on the guidance of the Holy Spirit, it implied that we do not depend on the self-help gurus, the elite teachers of the schools, or some special representative of God, be it Pope or Prophet or other self-proclaimed mouthpiece of the divine.

Rather, it was God – the hidden and invisible God who spoke to the heart of the believer – God the Holy Spirit who enlightened the heart and mind, who revealed the truth.

A scene from the 1950s black-and-white movie, has Martin Luther (who we should always remember was a Roman Catholic priest and professor) in conversation with another more conservative priest.

Luther is suggesting that the Bible should be made available in the languages of the common people and not just kept in Latin. The priest says to him "But what would we have if every plowboy were reading the Scripture for himself?" Luther's answer was "We would have more Christians."

For Luther, it is important that we read the scriptures ourselves. (Preferrably in the original languages – so we will soon need to start Greek and Hebrew classes for Sunday School here at the Acworth– attendance will be mandatory!!)

It is important, because Luther like the other reformers believed that the Holy Spirit was available as guide to every believer no matter how young or old, educated or uneducated, no matter what gender or class.

The Holy Spirit is God's indwelling presence whom we receive within us by faith.

Not just priests and pastors, but young people – children! – receive this gift.

We believe that the Holy Spirit inspired the writers of scripture in the times and places that they wrote what they wrote. Whether it was poetry like the Psalms, wise sayings like the Proverbs and Ecclesiastes, stories of origins like Genesis and Exodus, prophetic oracles like Amos or Isaiah, the teachings of Jesus in parables, Paul's reinterpretation of the stories of Moses and Israel, or the wild apocalyptic picture symbols of John of Patmos. The Bible has been preserved over generations because generation after generation has heard the voice of the Holy Spirit speak through these writings to its time and its place.

Our radical reformer ancestors left a persecuting English mother church and state and sought to create a new land that would allow the freedom of conscience because they heard the Spirit saying to them, “Freedom is what we have – Christ has set us free! Stand, then, as free people, and do not allow yourselves to become slaves again.”(Galatians 5:1)

They sought to hear in their time and in their place what the Spirit was saying to them.

Our African-American sisters and brothers listened to the scripture and the Holy Spirit spoke a new word from it for them in their time and place. The story of Moses and the Israelites spoke to their reality as slaves in plantations and over generations their spiritual songs longing for the promised land became an economic and social reality in time.

They sought to hear in their time and in their place what the Spirit was saying to them.

We are in a long tradition of reform.

But the distinctive way that Christians have sought to reform is not just to look at the now and what the new times pull us toward – but to always simultaneously look backward at who God has been revealed to be in the inspired scriptures.

These scriptures have remained with us for a reason – not to be pinned down once and for all as the dogma of God, but to be revisited, listened to in light of the time and circumstances and allowed to shed light for today.

Paul did not throw out the scriptures that he was taught as a Jew, but in light of Christ's life, death, and resurrection, Paul looked again and listened for what the Spirit is saying in his time and place.

And I believe the writings of Paul and other Apostles and early Christians should be treated in the same way by us that they treated the Jewish scriptures. They are to be listened to, read, interpreted anew in every generation that the Holy Spirit might speak and create what needs to be spoken and created in our time.

This means that the word of God is never stagnant, never static. For Christians it is grounded in Christ, but always speaking from that vantage point to our own lives in this modern world.

It means that we must always have the scriptures in one hand and the newspaper in the other and trust the Holy Spirit to lead us and guide us in how we should understand our times in light of God's time.

We read the words of Jesus in John's gospel, “I will ask the Father, and he will give you another helper, who will stay with you forever. He is the Spirit, who reveals the truth about God.” “When...the Spirit comes, who reveals the truth about God, he will lead you into all the truth. He will not speak on his own authority, but he will speak of what he hears and will tell you of things to come.”

We gotta listen. Listen to what the Spirit is saying. This means not just reading the scriptures but listening to the Spirit speak a word for this time and place through the scriptures.

Lectio Divina is an ancient practice of listening to scripture. Not dissecting, but sitting with it, letting the words settle like rain into the soil of our hearts and minds and by the Spirit in us, produce the fruit of wisdom and righteousness.

The word of God is active and alive, speaking always anew – the same old story in a new time becomes a rich new story.

The philosopher Heraclitus said that you can never step in the same river twice. In the same way, the gospel will never look the same – but in each generation will be embodied in a new way by expectant listeners who hear the scriptures and receive them by faith and allow the words to challenge and guide them in their relationship with God and the world.

The word is also sharp like a sword, or maybe a scalpel – where the Holy Spirit as surgeon needs to cut in order to heal. Sometimes we listen and it hurts. The word of God is not always sunshine, sometimes it's rain.  But in either case, it is giving us the direction we need if we hear and receive by faith.

We must rely on the Holy Spirit, we must listen, we must receive with openness the truth that God might be revealing to us.

“We depend, as did our ancestors, upon the continual guidance of the Holy Spirit to lead us into all truth.”

As our ancestors did, we must listen to and seek to embody the word of God in our time, in our place. That is how the gospel will go forward and bear fruit. Amen.